rs, again, of
which we get only distant and fugitive glimpses as we study the Word of
God. But we shall also admit, that these higher reaches of truth are
not those alone on which our faith is called to repose. It may seem to
many of you, that in my treatment of the subject now before us, I
overlook much that is essential to the Christian doctrine of salvation.
I may even seem to eliminate the supernatural element from it. A
little thought, however, should correct the latter impression. In
passing I have only to say, that I am not trying to exhaust this theme,
but simply to give it a setting which, I venture to think, is worth
consideration.

"What must I do to be saved?"--a question which may be put in two very
different states of moral being. It may be asked in a temper merely
curious and academic; or it may, as in the case of the text, voice a
profound sense of need. If we would be saved, we must realize that we
need to be saved. It was when the prodigal "came to himself" that he
said: "I will arise and go to my father."

We are to be saved from what? and into what are we to be saved? In
other words, not only must old things pass away, but all things must
become new. From what, I repeat, are we to be saved? There is but one
answer to the question: We are to be saved from sin by being delivered
from the power of evil; and sin is the wilful assertion of our
self-will against the holy will of God. The sense of sin may vary in
different people; it may vary with the moods of the same personal
experience. There are people who appear to be quite callous about the
evil within them and the evil they do. But just as our moral nature is
educated, just as we grow in sympathy with the divine will, do we
become increasingly sensitive to the distance there is between what we
are, and do, and the holiness of Him who is a consuming fire. We feel
that the Apostle was neither morbid, nor did he exaggerate the actual
situation when he cried: "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death?"

It has been said that the "only way to be saved from sin is to cease to
sin." And it is true that a man cannot, at the same time, sin in any
given direction, and cease from that sin. But it is also true that he
may cease from sin in the sense of not doing certain things, and yet be
the greater sinner in the sight of God, because of the motive which
acts as his deterrent or restraining force. I have see